


Dead, Not Gone

by mercvtio, transhitman



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, It's an AU, M/M, a ghoul au but not like tokyo ghoul, also maybe someone will get their ass smashed but for now it's a pg 13 for bloody stuff, just little green ghouls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-06 04:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15186755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercvtio/pseuds/mercvtio, https://archiveofourown.org/users/transhitman/pseuds/transhitman
Summary: Something is wrong. Death is supposed to be the one absolute in life. Corpses aren't supposed to start walking again. Men whose souls were eaten aren't supposed to posses diving suits. Transgender wizards aren't supposed to be hopping dimensions in Wales. And certainly, good Christian men aren't supposed to be hunting Arctic sea monsters for their own nefarious plans. But all that is happening, whether the recently un-deceased crew of the Terror wants it to or not. Why? That's the question they'll have to answer.





	1. Psylla

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to preface this with a fair warning that I might not finish this. This intro itself works on its own as an introduction to my AU, so I wanted to post it. That being said, I have a real doozy of a story in mind for yall, so if I stick with it, which I will try my hardest to, it's gonna be wild. Thanks for reading!
> 
> This chapter's song is: Glass Animals - Psylla

Cornelius Hickey lay among friends. Well, friends was perhaps too strong a word. The people around him had followed him in life, certainly, but none of them harbored love for eachother. He was in pieces. The top half of him was about 10 ft away from the bottom. His mouth was empty but somehow he could still growl a curse. Through some arcane force, he pulled the severed halves of his body back together, and stood in the desolate, grey wastes that served as his burial ground. The beast was gone.

John Irving rose from the ashes. What was once a funeral pyre became a site of mass resurrection as all those who had died at the ruined camp opened their eyes to a black sky. His hand twitched as he tried to take a forced breath. He couldn’t. He looked down at his chest to find a hole passing completely through him, through his lungs, his ribs, his spine. A viscous, dark red liquid seeped out of it and onto the grey ground. He looked back up at the stars, too stunned to even pray.

Henry Collins screamed, but he couldn’t remember why. Everything was a haze. Even in death, the peruvian permeated his mind and body. He couldn’t feel anything through it. He could see, hear, smell, but the only touch he felt was a dim pressure where his body connected with something solid, and the sensation of cold. He was half submerged in brine. Water sloshed inside him, and the smell of grease was everywhere. He wrenched off the diving helmet and gasped fresh air, only he didn’t have lungs. Water poured from the suit - too much for there to have been a body inside. He knelt on the freezing shore, holding himself, panicking, soaking the ground with brine.

John Bridgens was alone. At first, he thought he had merely fallen asleep, but looking down at his pale hands, he knew that something was wrong. He rose from his resting place. The pain of the poison and scurvy was gone. He wasn’t hungry, or tired, he didn’t feel death weighing on him. He pressed Peglar’s journal tightly to his chest. He didn’t feel anything.

Thomas Blanky’s death had been instant. It was a huge stroke of luck. The monster had snapped his neck against a boulder, and there was no time for it to consume his soul. He half stood, half floated on the hilltop he’d died on. He raised his hands to his head and twisted hard. A snap sounded on the barren hilltop as the crushed bones in his neck returned to their proper place. He gathered his severed arm from the ground and reattached his broken prosthetic. Smiling, he limped in the direction of where he assumed the nearest camp would be. He wasn’t much for sewing, but surely someone there could reattach his arm.

Edmund Hallows was jerked from sleep by a massive bang. He had dozed off in the engine room of the great ship following a night of particularly heavy drinking. It wasn’t one of the man’s vices, but he needed it after what happened that day. He got to his feet and shook the sleep out of his head, convinced whatever had awoken him was part of some dream. But then he heard it again, fainter. It came from outside the hull of the ship. He walked toward the source of the sound. A faint  _ tap tap tap  _ rose above the noise of the engine. He pressed his ear to the wall. The taps were consistent. He wondered what sort of creature would make noises like that. Then the wall shuddered. A deep growl ran through it and into Edmund's head. It sounded almost like a whale, but deeper, and less like a communicative call. Edmund jolted back, tripping over his own feet and falling to the ground. It sounded like a threat.

With every step Gwydion Fext took through the monochrome landscape, another snowflake fell. The first signs of winter touched Limbo like white ashes covering a faded photograph. The problem was, it had never been winter here before. She ventured deeper and deeper into the woods. She knew them well, but every time she walked her paths, there was something new to see. This time, that thing was the corpse of a spirit. The body sat in a clearing, and grass grew around it like it had been there forever. The trees surrounding it grew black leaves instead of grey, and they were strangely geometric compared with the rest of the forest. Gwydion cautiously approached it. It looked like a polar bear, but the face was human. Something moved beneath the skin of the massive corpse. Gwydion reached down with the cane she carried, but before she could touch the bulges, something burst from its skin. She hurriedly stepped back, shielding her face. The black mass that came from the beast moved like an insect’s legs. It twitched for a moment, still attached to the body, then withdrew back into the corpse. The corpse contorted, then burst, spilling black everywhere. It spread across the clearing, clawed at Gwydion’s boots for a second, then burrowed into the ground. Gwydion lingered in the clearing for just a moment, then walked off, wide eyed, back the way she had come. No question this time, something was wrong. The snow fell harder.

* * *

 

Harry Goodsir’s first thought as he woke up was disappointment. Somehow, he’d failed to die. It was an impossible feat. He’d emptied that bottle, and even in the event of a miracle, he surely would have bled to death. But as he faded into lucidity, he noticed that the surface beneath him was hard, and that he was lying on his stomach. Strange, as he had last slipped into oblivion lying on his back in a cot. It then occurred to him to open his eyes. He was outside, lying naked on a table among the skeleton of a camp - definitely not where he remembered offing himself. He groaned as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. His hands were covered in blood still, but his skin was deathly pale. He was numb everywhere. He assumed it was from residual morphine, until he saw the chunks missing from his body. His hindquarters and triceps were stripped away to the bone, and in place of flesh there was a translucent substance, a deep maroon in color. He prodded at his arm. The ghostly substance was solid. It felt like skin, at least as far as Harry could tell in his numb state. But unlike skin, the patches of maroon ectoplasm emitted a dark fog. It hung in the air like blood diffusing into water. The same fog leaked from the deep slits in his wrists.

Harry, of course, knew what was going on. It was easy enough to understand that he had died, and was dead, but was now somehow moving his body again. But he really didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to be some kind of ghost. Wasn’t the whole point of his stunt to die on his own terms? He wanted to be done, and he had been. He had cast away his life with no intention of getting it back and yet something had forced it back onto him. Was the universe making him suffer? But he didn’t let himself think about it too long. He was naked, dead, and missing pieces on a table in the arctic. Everything about his situation was irrational, but he could fix at least one thing. 

He moved off the table and walked toward the tent he had stayed at, which had long since collapsed. Against the rocky ground he could feel that a chunk was missing from the sole of his foot. Then Crozier, was he alive? How long was he laying on that table? He moved aside the tent tarp in search of his clothes. Hopefully, they weren’t so old they were unusable. Finally, he found them. They were worn, but there were no bugs or animals to eat holes in them. He dressed, trousers first, but forgoed the underclothes which had been soiled when he passed. He started on his shirt, but before he could finish with the buttons, a sound caught his attention. From outside the camp came the noise of shifting rocks. Someone - or something - was out there. The Tuunbaq? Hickey’s mutineers? Harry searched hurriedly for a weapon. He grabbed the closest thing that he could use - a tent pole - and crept toward the sound. 

It occurred to him, as he peeked out from around what was once a tent, how pathetic he must look. A dead man, half-naked, wielding a tent pole, approaching what could very well be a giant polar bear-shaped spirit. He raised the pole like a batter ready to swing. Barefoot, he was surprising stealthy. He’d at least have the advantage of surprise against whatever was rustling around in the wastes. The sound came from a small valley outside the camp. A pile of rocks obscured Harry’s view of the bottom. He approached as close as he thought he safely could without being heard, then he closed the gap, dashing toward the noise and stopping on the top of the rock pile, ready to swing the pole at whatever was there.

Unfortunately, his feet landed on loose shale. He tumbled down as the rocks slipped from under him. The pole flew from his hands and he landed straight in the middle of the small valley. Nothing was there. There was no man or beast. The only oddity Harry could sense was the odd shape of the rocks beneath him. His hand brushed against a noticeably pointed one. Strange. He looked down.

_ Oh dear lord that’s a skeleton. I’m sitting on a skeleton. _ Harry pulled back his hand with an exclamation of disgust and jumped to his feet. Two skeletons were scattered across the hole, and they were moving. The one on the left was partially complete, but only had one functioning hand. It was in the middle of trying to reconstruct the bones of its other wrist. A crack ran through its skull, and a pitch black ooze ran in a constant stream from its jaws. Its eyes were filled with the same pitch black, and two white, circular pupils stared at Harry in surprise. The one to the right was complete down through its thoracic vertebrae, and its other half, which Harry had landed on, was scattered across the pit. It looked at Harry with the same eyes as the other one, but this one’s hair was still somehow intact. That long brown hair made its owner unmistakable.

“Captain?” Harry croaked, voice breaking from lack of use.

“Doctor,” the skeleton answered. There was an awkward pause as the two stared at each other. “Could you, er, pass me my legs?”

Harry said nothing. He looked back over to his left at the other tall skeleton that had to be Mr. Gibson. The mutinous band had just dumped their cannibalized bodies in a shallow hole outside the camp. “You’re putting the wrist bones in the wrong place,” Harry said.

“I know!” Gibson shouted, clearly upset. “I’ve been trying to do this for the past twenty minutes! I’m not the doctor here.”

“I’m not-!” Harry took a deep breath and shook his head. He moved to the edge of the hole and sat down. He pressed his hands to his head and breathed out, then threw his arms out, gesturing broadly to the void, to the grey world that saw fit to place him back on this Earth. He gestured to the two skeletons in the pit and to whatever other poor souls like them that out there in the cold Arctic. His voice was deadpan, and he knew his question would be answered by nothing but a cold, uncaring universe and the sound of wind sweeping over the land. “Why?”


	2. Keep on Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwydion goes dream hopping. Irving gets pissed. Collins panics (again). Hickey makes new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters song is: The Glitch Mob - Keep on Breathing (ft. Tula)

It was cold in the first dream, colder than anything Gwydion had ever felt. It wasn’t her dream. It was someone else’s. She’d been looking for anyone who had a connection to that thing she had seen in the clearing. It was tough work to hone in on a dream that specific, but she’d finally gotten it. She looked down at herself. Her hands were pale, and she was slightly taller than she usually was in her own dreams. She put her hands to her head and felt a fuzzy mass of hair that continued onto her face. Snow blew hard against her circular glasses and stuck to the lenses. She cast them to the ground, as they obscured her vision too much to be of use. Though the snow fell in a never ending stream, little lingered on the ground. The ice beneath Gwydion’s feet was thin, but held her weight without cracking. Shadows swirled below her, the shapes of giant fish darting in and out of obscurity. She struck out into the blizzard. The wind pushed against her with brute force, stinging her face and hands with its cold. For a moment, she thought she would give in to the freezing climate before she found who she was looking for, but then a human figure appeared in the distance.

Through the blizzard, Gwydion could make out the figure of an Inuit woman in a parka. The woman stood on a particularly transparent part of the ice, and her hood obscured her face from view. Gwydion tried to call out to her, but as soon as she tried to speak her voice was drowned out by a horrible rumble. Gwydion looked down to the source of the noise, and saw the shifting shadows coalesce into one, huge, shapeless figure. Dread swept through her as she stared down into the abyss. She swallowed hard, and once again tried to call out to the woman. Still, the rumble drowned out all other noise. She again fought against the howling wind, toward the woman, who was staring down at the figure in fear. Finally, when Gwydion was within arms reach of her, she looked up and met Gwydion’s eyes. Gwydion slipped on the thin ice. She grabbed the woman’s shoulders, nearly bringing them both down. The ice cracked under the sudden excitement from above. Both women stared into the abyss. On the thinner ice, Gwydion could now see what the other had been captivated by. Two opalescent glints were visible from here, smack in the middle of the shadow. In the time it had taken Gwydion to reach the other woman, the figure had refined itself into something that resembled a human. The glints sat in the place where its eyes of this unknowable beast would be. It took up Gwydion’s entire field of vision, but based on the perspective of the thing it was far, far below the surface, and it only grew bigger as it approached them from below.

“You need to find me again,” Gwydion practically screamed at the woman. They stared wide-eyed at each other, gripping each others arms. “Something is horribly wrong. I need your help. Please.” The woman shook her head. Gwydion wasn’t sure if she could speak English, but she hoped against hope that she could understand her pleas through some kind of dream logic. Gwydion looked down again at the rising figure. Now she could make out the hands of the thing, and the glint of the eyes had grown into two reflective orbs. When she looked back up at the woman, her expression was shocking. She looked like she was about to cry. Water was spilling out through the cracks in the ice now, soaking their feet in freezing brine. The ice buckled upward with the surge of water the creature was bringing up from the deep. The woman moved her hand off of Gwydion’s arm and hesitantly placed it on her cheek. Gwydion wasn’t sure how to react. Whoever she appeared as to this woman was a mystery, but without really thinking she leaned her head to meet her. Gwydion moved her own hand and pressed it against the woman’s.

“It’s ok.” Gwydion didn’t know why, but she had a sudden urge to reassure this woman. It wasn’t difficult to read the look on her face. It carried so many emotions at once. Sadness, guilt, loneliness, all of it was laid out so plainly in the dream. It practically emanated from her. The pair had risen at least 10 ft with the bulging ice. Neither dared look down. They kept their eyes locked on each other and gripped their arms tighter. The rumble had crescendoed to a scream, and then went silent as their eardrums burst. The thin ice below them split open and cold rushed to envelop them. The freezing water burned through their clothes, through their skin. Within seconds they were frozen through, but still they felt the rumble in their chests. Bubbles slipped from Gwydion's mouth as water rushed into her lungs, and then the dream was over.

 

* * *

 

The men at the funeral pyre were all minding their own business. None of them talked to each other. It had been days since they had woken up, but they were still too preoccupied silently panicking and trying to come to terms with their new undead state to converse. Near to where their bodies had been burned sat a pile of supplies that had been left behind by the survivors of the camp. Within that pile, Irving had found a needles and thread, which he now used to stitch his scalp back onto his head. The sutures weren’t medical by any means, but they were even and joined the flesh back together in an at least somewhat aesthetically appealing way. (Well, at least somewhat. It was still a horrific wound.) Irving used a silver plate as a mirror as he worked. It didn’t show his reflection very well, but he had to make due with what he was given. At least he knew how to sew.

In the warped reflection of the plate, Irving saw someone approach him from behind. He turned around to see a one-armed Mr. Blanky limping toward him. He sat down on the ground next to Irving and yanked off his broken prosthetic.

“You’re not bad at that. Sewing, that is,” Blanky said. Irving tied off his last stitch and cut the string with his pocket knife. He looked over Blanky’s severed arm. It was completely limp, and the hand looked like it was bent the wrong way. Additionally, the arm had been severed at the bicep, rather than at a joint. Irving was no doctor, but he doubted it the arm would go back on right no matter how neatly he stitched it. Irving rolled his eyes.

“Spare me the flattery,” he said, “You want me to put that back on for you, but I’m afraid that might be a bit outside my skills.”

“You got got your scalp back on well enough.”

“A thin piece of skin is much closer to fabric than an entire appendage, Mr. Blanky. You’re going to have to find a surgeon for that one.” There was a pause. Blanky looked dejectedly down at his limp arm. He laid it across his lap.

“So, did you manage to reattach your-”

“No.” Irving stared daggers at Blanky. “No, and we aren’t talking about it.” He looked out over the remains of the camp. His eyes landed on the hastily constructed gallows, abandoned on the edge of the camp. Though ghouls milled about all over the site, no one approached the wooden structures. “Who did you hang there?” Irving felt he knew the answer, but Hickey’s body was nowhere to be seen, animated or otherwise.

Blanky scoffed. “No one. Spent all that time putting that thing up and never got to use it.”

“Why not?”

“The beast attacked up in the middle of it. He had the damned rope around his neck, and he still got away.” Blanky shook his head and sighed. “He murdered an entire family and didn’t answer for it.”

Irving’s heart dropped. “Hickey killed them? All of them?”

“He didn’t pull the trigger, no. He made it look like they killed you and Farr, then when our men found them…” Blanky let Irving fill in the rest.

Anger welled up in Irving’s chest to fill the place his heart had fallen from. He frowned. “Lord that - that’s horrible. They man not be civilized but they aren’t the savages everyone makes them out to be.” The men shared a moment of silence. Yet another weight had been added to their troubled minds. Irving stood up. “Doesn’t that make you angry?”

Blanky remained sitting. “Course it does! But what are we gonna do about it? For all we know, the rat bastard didn’t come back like we did.”

“Well what if he did? His crimes can’t go unpunished.”

“You’re walking around with a hole through your heart. Do you think we can even die? Unless you know how to kill someone twice I don’t think that’s the best use of your time right now.”

“We had to have come back for a reason, right?” Irving put his hand to the edge of his chest hole. It had stopped leaking that fluid but a stain remained where it had dripped into his shirt. “The only reason I can see right now is penance.”

Blanky opened his mouth, then shut it. Of course the Lieutenant would jump straight to divine intervention.

“It doesn’t matter if you agree, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to find Mr. Hickey and I’m going to kill him. Somehow.”

Blanky shifted his gaze from Irving to the far edge of the camp. He had spotted on of the carpenters that helped build the gallows. If he couldn’t get his arm back, he could at least find someone to fix his leg. He grabbed his busted prosthetic and hopped over to Irving, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good luck with that.” Then he continued on his awkward way. Irving stood alone again. He looked down at his warped reflection in the silver plate. Down at his dead, blue face, his sunken eyes, his mutilated scalp. Yeah. Somehow.

 

* * *

 

Collins walked along the coast. He had tried to head inland, but had just ended up back at the coast again. This way, he thought, at least he couldn’t get lost, which was a very real possibility. Even after walking for days he was still high on the peruvian. At least he knew he was on the coast. He carried the helmet of his suit in one hand, and in his other he carried a waterlogged gun that had washed up on shore. A lot of things had washed up on shore as he walked. It was debris, mostly. Occasionally, Collins would see clothes or silverware or empty cans. But the flow of random objects had slowed down over the past few days as the sea had progressively been covered in more and more ice. Eventually, the coast would be frozen over. Collins worried he’d get lost then.

The suit was heavy, and it slowed Collins’ pace. His boots were loud against the loose rocks that comprised the ground. In all honesty he had completely lost count of the sunrises. He just trudged forward in an uneventful line. The first break in the monotony was nothing more than a feeling. An emptiness opened up in Collins’ stomach, then crept up his spine, forming a lump in his throat that made him choke up. He stopped walking. It was a familiar feeling. It felt like…

 _Like a trap door. Like something’s about to open up and pull me into some hidden space I won’t get back from._ The words he’d spoken so long ago came back to him. When he had first said them, it was in a metaphorical sense as he spiraled into madness, and he had already fallen into it. Now, it was litteral. He felt something tugging at his insides. It was trying to pull him backward, but Collins refused to move. He was suddenly sure that something was hovering just inches from his back. He yelped and jumped in his paranoia, turning around to face whatever was behind him. Relief filled him as he realized that nothing was there, and then horror took its place as he looked off into the distance to see a hulking beast staggering in his direction. His first instinct was to run, but even in his intoxicated state he knew he couldn’t outrun the thing. There landscape was flat. He couldn’t hide on land. The tugging was getting harder. Collins looked down at the diving helmet he carried. The last thing he wanted to do was put it on, but the alternative was letting the creature catch him. He dropped the waterlogged gun and waded out into the water. He donned the helmet as he walked deeper. Instantly, the smell of grease overwhelmed him. The water was up to his shoulders, and with just a few more steps he submerged himself completely in the arctic brine. He was almost sure he wasn’t far enough from shore, that the creature would see him as it passed, but he couldn’t bring himself to go deeper. Instead he crouched at the bottom, trying to get as far below the surface as possible. He waited.

The tugging in his chest got harder and harder as the creature approached. All was silent beneath the water save for Collins’ own heavy breathing. All at once, the tugging turned into a yank that threatened to tip Collins forward. He steadied himself, his fingers digging into the rocks below him. Silhouetted against the surface of the water by the faint light of day, a huge, white figure came into view. The Tuunbaq, was it called? Whatever its name was, it was the same creature, Collins was sure. But something was different. The thing’s neck was long and bulbus. Even through the distortion of the water it seemed too thick in proportion to its head. Then, the thick neck split into three. At first, Collins thought it was a trick of his spiraling mind, but the image was so real. Each neck extended in a different direction as the creature searched the air for any definable scent. Collins’ Breath hitched and he actually did start choking on the lump in his throat. But soon enough, the shimmering silhouette of the beast began to move again, continuing on its way down the frozen beach. The tug weakened and Collins breathed again. He didn’t have to, but it brought him some semblance of comfort. He waited to move until he couldn’t feel the tug at all anymore, then he waited longer. He sat beneath the water for what could have been hours. Finally, unable to bear the smell of grease any longer, he crawled back to the surface and removed the helmet. The sun was going down now. Unable to continue on his path with the monster in his way, Collins sat on the shore and looked out to the water. The deep red rays of the sun danced across it, and Collins couldn't help but think it looked like wine. He didn’t let his mind wander to the other red alternative. The mesmerizing waves of the sea distracted him from what had just happened. The pit in his imaginary digestive tract closed, and his breathing slowed to a normal pace. He kept his eyes locked on the shimmering ocean until the last light of the sun disappeared from the sky. And then it was dark.

 

* * *

 

The word “thrall” came to mind. It really did fit the sensation better than anything else. The bisected ghoul watched stoically as Peglar’s eyes widened in fear. His fingers twitched, his shoulders tensed in an effort to do literally anything, but he was no longer in control of his body.

“What’s your name?” Hickey mouth remained closed as he spoke, but his voice came clear as day. Peglar clenched his jaw shut in defiance. “I know we’ve met before, but it’s escaping me at the moment.”

A thrall - defined as total emotional servitude to something. That was what was going on. It wasn’t an emotion of desire, make no mistake. It felt more like absolute oppression. Like every hopeful thing Peglar had ever felt had been snubbed at once. He stopped struggling physically and let his arms hang at his sides. Hickey approached him. He smiled warmly, but in a situation like this it was unnerving. He reached up and placed his hands on the sides of Peglar’s face. Peglar looked into his stark white eyes with apprehension. Then his vision shifted. It was as if someone had placed white stained glass over his face. The already pale landscape was washed out further and small distortions danced across his field of view. Something dripped out of Hickey’s mouth. A silver liquid poured from him, cumulating on his chin and falling to the ground in a constant stream. Peglar felt something rise in his own throat. He coughed and the same tasteless liquid sprayed from his mouth. It dripped down his face and onto his shirt, staining it with a metallic sheen.

Hickey drew away and the liquid silver stopped flowing. “What’s your name?” he repeated.

“Henry Peglar.” He said the words without thinking. He tried again to move, but this time he couldn’t even elicit a twitch. “I don’t understand. What are you going to gain by doing this?”

Hickey patted Peglar on the shoulder. He smiled again, and then that smile turned into a laugh, and Peglar could see into his mouth. The silver liquid was pooled in the cracks between his teeth like rot. His gums were a sickly grey, and Peglar came to a realization that what he had assumed was silver was actually lead. A silvery mess squirmed in place of Hickey’s tongue. Its jagged edges writhed as Hickey’s laugh faded.

“There’s so much more out there than you could imagine.” And with that, Hickey turned and walked away. Peglar felt his legs move of their own volition, and he followed him into the wastes.


	3. Wheels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silna has another nightmare. Harry finds a crab. Irving acquires a guide. Ed gets scared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song is: Cake - Wheels

The second dream was cold, though not as cold as the first. Gwydion stood in a snowy field. A faint breeze swept across the land and stirred up little swirls of white powder, dumping them into drifts that dotted the bright arctic landscape. The most striking thing about this dream was the sky. It was a bright blue, the color of the open ocean. Creatures swam through it as if they were right at home in the sea. Schools of fish formed clouds in the clear sky, shimmering as they passed over the sun. The reflections from their scales turned the snow into a glittering desert of white. Whales floated gracefully by on their slow-moving way, and octopi darted around, streaking their changing colors across the sky like mini rainbows.

Gwydion tore her eyes away from the sight and looked down at herself. In this dream, she was again a white man, but not the same man from the first dream. She was taller and more heavy-set than before. The cold was more bearable, as Gwydion wore a heavy coat, but her cheeks were beginning to sting due to lack of any facial hair. She breathed into her gloved hands in an effort to warm her face and bounced on the balls of her feet to shake off the cold. It didn’t work very well, but as she surveyed the landscape her eyes fell on what looked to be a small dwelling made of ice. _It’s called an igloo._ The thought came from the person she was in this dream. Hope rose in Gwydion’s chest. If this man, whoever he was (or _she_ was at the moment), was knowledgeable about the native people of the arctic, then perhaps the language barrier could be broken, at least in this dream. She’d just have to wait and see. Snow squeaked under her boots as she walked toward the igloo. As she approached she felt a bit apprehensive, but nonetheless she patted the entrance to alert the house’s resident of her approach.

“Hello?” Gwydion was a bit surprised that her voice came out with an Irish accent. But she shrugged it off as she heard movement from inside the structure. She backed away from the entrance and, much to her relief, the same woman from the previous dream poked her head out. She paused for a moment as recognition registered in her face, then she stepped out completely from the igloo. Gwydion searched for something to say, and the woman looked at her quizzically. In the first dream, she had felt a desire to comfort this woman. Not in a patronizing way though, in a sympathetic way that one would feel for a friend who had recently lost something. In this dream, she felt a kind of respect for her. She felt as if this woman was simply better than her. It was an odd kind of self-deprecating respect, to say the least.

“Well, at least it’s not a nightmare this time,” Gwydion said in English. She smiled awkwardly at the woman, who still wouldn’t - or couldn’t - talk. Gwydion looked to the fish-filled sky and wracked her brains for the right sounds to make. She was sure the man she appeared as knew something of use. She sighed in frustration. The woman set a hand on Gwydion’s elbow, and Gwydion looked back down. The woman gestured to the igloo in invitation. Gwydion nodded and entered. She sat on the packed snow that served as a floor and continued to focus on getting something useful from the character she was supposed to play in the dream. She looked up to see that the woman was offering her a piece of seal meat. Gwydion grimaced and said something in a language she didn’t understand. She didn’t know the words, but she knew she had said something along the lines of “I’m not hungry, thank you”. When all else fails, one can always rely on emotions to set a dream on its course. The woman set aside the meat, then gestured to Gwydion as if to ask what she was doing here. The question was obviously meant for the man whose body Gwydion was puppeteering at the moment, but Gwydion answered for herself.

“Do you remember the other dream?” She said in the unfamiliar language. “The one with the beast that came out of the ocean?” The woman thought for a moment, then nodded and pointed at Gwydion in surprise.

“Yes. That was me, too.” Gwydion smiled. Finally, they were getting somewhere. “My name is Gwydion Fext. Can you tell me your name, or the name of the person I look like right now?” The woman shook her head and tapped her mouth. Gwydion pursed her lips. “Well, this is _your_ dream. You don’t have to be what you’re like in real life.”

The woman focused as Gwydion had. She knitted her brows and frowned. Nothing seemed to be happening. She looked disappointedly at Gwydion and shook her head. Before they could continue their conversation, the two women were assailed by an ear-shattering three-toned roar. Gwydion glanced at her companion in shock, then darted to the entrance of the igloo. She brushed aside the animal pelt that covered the entryway and looked out into the tundra. The creatures that filled the sky were all moving in the same direction now, much quicker. It didn’t take an expert to figure out that they were fleeing from something. In the distance, Gwydion saw a creature, the same dead thing she had seen in the clearing in Limbo. This time though, it had three heads sitting on three long, undulating necks, and it was very much up and moving around.

“Well, it’s a nightmare now.” She only got a quick glimpse of it before she was pulled back into the igloo by the woman. Gwydion pulled her arm out of the woman’s grasp, but she was insistent, and much stronger than Gwydion expected. Their struggled devolved into the two slapping at each other’s forearms.

“It can’t-” The woman broke off mid-sentence and covered her mouth in surprise. Gwydion stopped struggling and looked at her expectantly. “It can’t be controlled anymore.”

Another roar rang out and Gwydion glanced panickedly at the igloo’s entrance. “I saw that thing’s dead body in - in another place. Something - uh - came out of it.” Gwydion silently cursed her dream avatar for not being more fluent. “How did it die?”

Gwydion heard the faint sound of pounding footsteps, then another roar. “It was poisoned,” the woman said. “It died of eating poisoned men.”

“Is that a figure of speech or?”

“Partially, but it’s also litteral. Its prey, they were all sick - dying.” The footsteps were getting louder.

“Whatever made it sick, I think it’s making everything sick.” She swore in English then continued in the unfamiliar language. “That makes no sense. I’m sorry.” Another roar sounded, even closer. Gwydion gently touched the other woman’s arm to draw her attention from the beast and back to her. “I need to know what’s going on. _We_ need to know what’s going on. What’s your name?”

“Silna.”

Gwydion smiled. The name struck something in her. It was a beautiful name, one she wouldn’t forget when she woke. She backed toward the entrance. “You should come to one of my dreams next time. They’re a lot warmer.” She exited the igloo and faced the three-headed beast as it sprinted full-throttle at her. The monster raised its claws and in a flash she was on the ground, life ebbing away, blood from her slit throat staining the sparkling snow. The dream ended.

 

* * *

 

The three cannibalized ghouls arrived at the funeral pyre camp in just a few days. They found that sleeping wasn’t at all necessary for them anymore, so they walked straight through the night, only stopping when Gibson started falling apart. Eventually, he gave up trying to put his head back on straight and just carried it as they walked. Though the skeletons didn’t have flesh, they still chose to pick up clothes on their way out of the abandoned camp. Gibson wore just a regular shirt and trousers, while Fitzjames went more theatrical. He wore a heavy jacket, and over that he a wore cloak that had turned the same pitch black as his eyes when he had donned it. Compared to the other two, he was an intimidating spectre of death. He could have been the reaper himself were it not for his well-kept hair.

Despite wearing clothes, the mauve fog that leaked from Harry’s missing parts still seeped out into the air, though at a slower rate. Now that they were at the funeral pyre, Harry hoped layering some coats would stem the flow completely. The camp was mostly quiet. The men there had, for the most part, now come to terms with their ghoulish state. They sat clustered or alone, quietly conversing with each other, presumably about what they were going to do next. A few of the groups looked up as the trio approached the site, but made no move to greet them. Harry parted from his traveling companions and went off in search of more clothes.

Fitzjames was hesitant in commanding the men. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to lead, but he doubted he’d have any better ideas than the rest of them. He had been hoping that whatever group he’d find would have thought of a course of action on their own. Besides, he also doubted whether these people would have any faith left in their broken command structure. The last thing these men must have remembered before dying was the realization that there was no hope for them, that their capitan had lied, that no man could hope to protect them from the supernatural threats that haunted them. He rubbed his arm as he surveyed the camp. Finally, he spotted Mr.Blanky a few tents away, talking to a concerned-looking Mr.Bridgens.

“Mr.Blanky,” Fitzjames called as he approached the explosives expert. Blanky turned away from Bridgens to face Fitzjames. He grinned at the approaching skeleton.

“Capitan? What happened to you then? Last I saw, your flesh was on your bones, even if you were dead.”

Fitzjames looked at Blanky’s severed arm. “I could ask the same of you,” he said.

“Ah, it’s nothing. I’m just lucky I got out with my head.” Blanky replicated his usual hand motions with his detached arm. The appendage flopped around in exaggerated arcs and Fitzjames found he couldn’t take his eyes off of it for fear he’d be slapped by the limp fingers. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen anyone with the medical know-how to put this thing back on, you you?”

“Actually, Mr.Goodsir was in our party a moment ago. He’s somewhere around here. He could probably…” Fitzjames looked again at the lopsided, drooping arm. “He could probably do… something.”

Suddenly, a shout carried through the camp, then a thud. Then there was the sound of shifting rocks as someone struggled on the ground. The sound faded, and Harry came running into view wearing a massive coat, carrying some kind of spider-like creature by its long legs. “NOT TO BE RUDE BUT WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THIS?” The thing struggled in his grasp making clicking noises when its legs banged together. From where Harry held it in the air, its legs dangled down nearly the entire length of his body. Its carapace was a dark grey in color and its eyes were a bright blue. Its body was about the size of a dinner plate. On closer inspection, it looked less like a spider, and more like someone had run a crab through a noodle maker.

“Oh one of those?” Blanky remained calm while Fitzjames and Bridgens reeled in disgust. “They’re mostly harmless on their own, but they can sting like hell.”

“What do you mean ‘they’? Are there more? What even -” Harry dropped to his knees and pinned the thrashing crustation to the ground. It hissed, and bluish steam blasted out of the slits between its plated exoskeleton. Harry yelled and covered his face, giving the thing an opening to wriggle free of his grasp.

“Burn like hell too,” Blanky remarked as he dropped his arm and pulled out a knife from his pocket. He ran at the crab as the thing struggled to get its long legs under it. Blanky’s foot made contact with its body, producing a noise that sounded like an empty can being kicked, and the creature went flying into a tent, stunned. Harry shook off the burn and jumped back in to help. He again grabbed the thing’s legs, steadying it for Blanky as he wedged his knife into the slit in its carapace. Silvery blood spurted from it as Blanky twisted the knife and broke the carapace apart. The meat inside was black as soot. Sinews stretched with the carapace like spider webs on the inside of an opening chest. The thing struggled harder, until the sinews snapped, and the carapace broke completely apart. Harry released the legs, which twitched and clicked together with the last nerve impulses of the dead creature. Blanky pocketed his knife and picked up the twitching corpse.

“Well. Better put this on the pile.”

“The. There’s a pile?” Harry followed Blanky incredulously to a clearing in the tents, where, sure enough, there was a sizable pile of dead crabs.

“We tried burning them at first,” Blanky explained, “but not only was it hard to get a fire going, when we actually did manage to burn them they smelled horrible.” He turned around and headed back to their original meeting place. “They’ve been showing up more and more lately. The problem began when they showed up in a swarm of ten. We killed nine of them, but after that they’ve been showing up more frequently, damn bugs.”

“Crustaceans, actually,” Harry corrected. “An important distinction since they’re likely coming from the ocean rather than from inland.”

Blanky nodded. Fitzjames approached them and handed Blanky his arm. “I think the one we didn’t kill somehow told its little crab friends where we were. It’s manageable now, but if they swarm us we could have a problem.”

“I assumed nothing could really hurt us,” Fitzjames said. “I mean, we can’t feel pain, and most of us are walking around well enough with mortal injuries.”

“Er, I definitely felt that thing’s legs jamming into my arms,” Harry said. “Not to mention that steam.” Fitzjames looked at Harry. He was practically drowning in his clothes. The multitude of layers made him look like a small bird with the feathers of a much larger bird glued onto it, but it did stem the flow of fog. He could have passed as alive were it not for his dead eyes.

Fitzjames was almost happy about this predicament they were in. He now had a tangible threat to deal with, and unlike the monster they had been hunted by previously, he knew these things could be killed, and quite easily too. “Has there been any sign of the Tuunbaq since you woke?”

“No sign of the beast,” Blanky said. “Just the crabs. Though I’m not sure if we need to worry about it. Last I saw it was sick as a dog. It may actually have died.”

“We should still be on the lookout. It seems death isn’t a permanent solution anymore.” Fitzjames looked over the camp. Despite having a clearer goal, he was beginning to feel like the men here didn’t want him to lead. He kept receiving cold glances and he got a sneaking suspicion that whatever the men were whispering about pertained to him. Like he thought before, they probably didn’t trust the traditional leadership structure anymore.

_It’s justified. I am a fraud, after all._ He brushed away the thought. He turned back to Blanky. “Do you think Francis is out there somewhere?”

“It’s possible, though out of all of us, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had actually survived. He might be sipping tea back in England as we speak.” Blanky frowned in thought. “How long do you think it’s been since we died?”

“Well, we didn’t rot much,” Harry chimed in. “The cold might have had something to do with that, but we probably weren’t dead long. Then again...” He looked around the camp. “These men were burned, right? But their bodies are intact now.” He scratched his head. “I supposed there’s really no way to tell.”

“Um, Mr.Blanky,” Bridgens spoke up. The rest of the little party had almost forgotten he was there. “This is an important discussion, but could we get back to-”

“Right, right, your problem.” Blanky clapped Bridgens on the shoulder with his severed arm. Bridgens suppressed a shiver. “Why don’t you explain?”

“Right, well. On my way back here I stopped at an abandoned camp to look for any other undead men. I didn’t find any, but the problem is I knew at least one person had died there. And there were signs that more had died later on. But the camp was just completely empty. I don’t understand where they could have gone.”

“They probably just left,” said Fitzjames matter-of-factly. “They may have continued on our original route in an attempt to find any survivors.”

“Right, right, but…” Bridgens looked like he was struggling to find the words to explain his predicament, and at the same time like he was being questioned after breaking the law.

“Hey, I get it,” Blanky said, looking Bridgens in the eye. “I know. I get it.” He raised his eyebrows in a gesture that said “ _I know you’re worried about your boyfriend, you big gay buffoon,_ ” though with more era-appropriate wording. Those not in the loop glanced at each other in confusion about the seemingly conspiring men. “We could probably set aside some manpower to find our runaway spectres. We don’t know how widespread those crab things are. And even if they did end up finding survivors, well, you know how god-fearing men are about the supernatural.”

Fitzjames nodded pensively. “I have some… reservations about commanding the men.”

“Aye, they’re a bit… out of it.”

“Well it’s not just that. All of this, it’s not really part of the expedition anymore. The crew is supposed to follow orders to the death, but they didn’t sign up to do it after. Even if I felt confident in giving orders I don’t know how many would actually follow.”

Blanky scratched his chin (with his functional hand, thankfully). He looked at Bridgens with knitted brows, then back at Fitzjames. “Are you good at fighting, capitan? Actually fighting, I mean, not shooting off rockets at oversized targets.”

James felt that one right in his ego. “If you’re asking if I could take on one of those crabs, the good doctor managed, I’m sure I could.” Harry pretended not to hear that.

“Good. Because we have no guns, and if you really think the men wouldn’t listen to you then we’ll have to look for for the missing crew ourselves.” Bridgens’ eyes widened at Blanky’s words. Blanky slapped him across the chest with his gruesome limb. “Of course you’d have to join us.”

Bridgens blinked. “I - alright. Yes. Thank you.”

Fitzjames turned to Harry. “Mr. Gooodsir would you also-”

“If it’s all the same to you, Capitan, I’d like to stay here,” Harry interjected. “I’d like to study the bodies of those crustaceans. They seem to be made of some interesting materials. I could try to figure out why they’re able to harm us and counteract it.”

“I suppose we have a plan then,” said Fitzjames. “Gather whatever you need and we can set off as soon as we’re ready.”

The party began to disperse, but Blanky called out to Goodsir. “Doctor! Been meaning to ask.” He held up his arm and smiled lopsidedly. “Do you think this’ll go back on?” Harry scratched his nose. He paused for a good five seconds before replying with a tired nod and an eye roll.

“Why not?”

 

* * *

 

 

Meanwhile, across the pyre camp, Gibson wandered aimlessly. He had never been a sociable man. He didn’t know anyone at the camp well. Really, he didn’t know anyone outside of the muniny well. He suspected that the only thing preventing the rest of the men at the camp from shunning him altogether because of his association with the mutiny was the fact that they didn’t recognize him without his meat. Cornelius had been the one person he’d been close with, and that relationship had gone extremely awry. _Really, it was a trainwreck. Maybe if you’d actually acted like you cared he wouldn’t have…_

In the middle of the camp, there was still a pile of supplies. It had been sorted through by the ghouls, but there were still things of use in it. Gibson could see someone struggling to remove a wood box from the bottom of the pile. He decided that he didn’t have much to do other than try and regain some trust, so he made his way over to struggling man.

“Hey, do you need some he-” Just as he spoke, the box popped loose from the pile. The man crouched on the ground lost his balance and fell backward with a thud. He must have been pulling hard, as the box flew from his hands and over his head, connecting squarely with Gibson’s chest. His sentence transformed into a strained _oof_. It didn’t hurt, but it knocked the metaphorical wind out of him. The box dropped to the ground at his feet. He recovered from the hit, and reached down to grab the box, only to find that the other man was also reaching for it. He jumped back when he realized who it was.

Though the Lieutenant’s skin was a pale mint color, though blood from his cut scalp obscured some of his face, though a hole was punched straight through his chest, and though he sported the wings he had been wearing at carnivale for no obvious reason, Gibson instantly recognized him as John Irving. Gibson stood bolt upright. He wasn’t at all sure how to interact with this man. And sitting on top of his anxieties pertaining to talking to a man his ex-lover had brutally maimed was the fact that Irving looked... really cool. He looked like an angel, literally. Gibson didn’t know why Irving had come back with the fake wings, nor did he understand why a red and black halo floated around his head in mimicry of his stitched-up scalp, nor did he know why his chest wounds had become one massive hole, but good lord if it didn’t give off an incredible aesthetic energy.

“Are you alright?” Irving stood, the box in one hand, a large bag in the other. He looked, confused, at Gibson, his eyes flicking between the space above Gibson’s neck and his actual skull.

“Yes! Yes. I’m fine.” Gibson cleared his throat, though he didn’t need to. He’d noticed that for some reason he still instinctively replicated human breath. Irving nodded, then went back about his business. He dug around in the box for a bit, finally coming away with a few useful bits and bobs, which he placed into his bag. He looked back up at Gibson.

“Can I help you, Mr.Gibson? Or are you just going to stand there?”

“I, um, wait, how did you know it was me?”

“Your voice.” Irving scoffed. “That, and the fact that no one else aboard either ship was as twiggish as you.”

“Ah. Rude, but entirely fair.” Gibson paused and watched as Irving closed up his bag. “Are you going somewhere?”

Irving shouldered his bag. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t, really. But I also don’t have anything else to occupy my time.”

“Well,” Irving sighed, “if you really must know, I’m leaving to exact justice.”

That threw Gibson for a loop. “Justice?”

Irving still didn’t know where he should look when talking to Gibson, so he settled on the skull. “I’m going to kill Mr. Hickey.” The statement was half challenge, half reassurance. “You _are_ aware of what he did, correct?”

A pang of guilt rose up in Gibson’s ribs. He shifted uncomfortably. “Yes.” The two men stood there uncomfortably for a while. Neither knew how to wrap up the conversation gracefully.

“Well then, I suppose I should be going.” Irving turned and began to walk away from the camp. Gibson hesitated, tempted to let the man go, but much to his immediate regret he called out to Irving.

“Alone?” Gibson mentally berated himself for caring about the lieutenant’s safety.

“Yes, alone.” Irving turned back around and stopped in his path. “I’m not a child, Mr. Gibson. I can take care of myself.”

“I know. I know, but you’re going the wrong way, based on where his last whereabouts. And if you actually want to live through that encounter, you’re going to want to have a gun. That is, assuming he’s either still alive or undead like us.” Again, they stared at each other in awkward silence. A strange kind of tension sat between them. It was a vague fog of every interaction between them, of guilt and pity and general disdain. Their one common ground was the knife that killed them, and the man that wielded it. The next words stuck in Gibson’s throat, but he had nothing else left to say. “I know where he last was. Let me come with you.”

Irving furrowed his brow, then sighed. “Alright. Show me.” And with that, the two murder victims started down what they hoped to be a shared path to vengeance.

 

* * *

 

 

“And what about you, Mr. Hallows?” The question snapped Edmund out of his dissociative trance. It was a rare occasion that he ate his meals with the other men, but when he did he always stuck to the corners of the room where there were few people. A small group of less talkative men shared his usual corner. They didn’t know him well, and he didn’t even know their names. Nevertheless they spoke to him once in a while.

“Uh… what was the question?” Edmund’s voice was low and sluggish.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” The tall, dark-haired man who had first spoken repeated. “You know, spirits, the supernatural?”

Edmund poked his fork into his sketchy meal of slimy, vague meat mash. He glanced around the table at the familiar strangers. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s impossible, but I’ve never seen anything like that. That’s a strange question.”

“Well, you know, with all the rumors floating around,” a stockier, auburn-haired man chimed in, “you kind of have to point it all toward something otherworldly.”

Edmund scratched his fuzzy chin. His eyes were wide like a mildly lost traveler.

“You _do_ know, don’t you?” Auburn-hair asked. Edmund shook his head. The other men at the table all began whisper-yelling in surprise. They tripped over themselves to be the one to explain their talk of ghosts. At the same time they sounded desperate to remain unheard by the rest of the dining men. At last, the first dark-haired man calmed the rest of the table.

“Did you really sign on not knowing what happened to the last ships?” he asked.

“I suppose I did,” Edmund answered. He laughed awkwardly. “I, uh… don’t really follow the news too much.”

“Well it’s not new news.” The dark-haired man leaned in and lowered his voice, something ominous creeping out of it. “We aren’t the first to attempt to find the passage, you know.” Edmund nodded. He knew that at least. “The last expedition disappeared a few years back. No one knows exactly what happened to them. When men went to investigate, the only thing they found were the buttons from one of the captain's coats. No bodies, no ships, camps, nothing.”

“The arctic is huge,” Edmund said. “It’s probably easy to disappear here.”

“No, no, see, that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that when our search party asked the eskis what happened to them, they said there was… a monster.” The table fell silent, waiting for Edmund’s reaction. Edmund glanced around the table. He scratched his neck awkwardly.

“A monster, huh?” he said, disinterested at first. But then his body tensed as he remembered what he’d heard down in the engine room. The tapping, the inhuman sound. He lowered his hand to his side slowly. His eyes widened further. “What, uh, what kind of monster? Like a sea monster?”

The dark-haired man smirked at having finally gotten under Edmund’s skin. “They said it was a beast made of muscle and spells. They said it chased them endlessly, that it hunted them with human intelligence. What kind of monster do you think could do something like that? What do you think it would have been like to feel its jaws close around y-”

Edmund stood up quickly, knocking his chair over with the back of his knees. The murmur of the mess hall quieted as some of the crew stared at him. Edmund’s heart was pounding, the blood rushed through his ears like the tapping against the hull. He forced a smile. “That all sounds very interesting!” Blush spread across his face as he noticed the attention he’d drawn to himself. “Sounds really interesting, but grown men don’t believe in monsters. I’m sort of surprised at you all.” He wasn’t hungry anymore. He knew he’d regret not eating but he couldn’t bring himself to stay in the mess hall any longer. “I just - I just remembered something I need to do. I’ll see you gentlemen later.”

With that he hurriedly made his way topside, leaving his dishes on the table for some other poor sod to clean. The stairs creaked under him and he stepped out onto the deck of the HMS Bahamut. It was night, not only arctic night, but at least close to regular, England night. The ship was less lively now. Most of the crew was in the mess hall or asleep. Only the necessary jobs were being done at the moment. Edmund breathed out the cold air slowly. He wasn’t usually like this. Sure he had always been a bit of an odd man, but something was off lately. He walked over the mostly empty deck to the edge of the ship and looked out onto the ocean. Little circles of ice floated on the waves like fine plates on a dark table cloth. Further out, there were larger pieces of ice, much larger, which had only appeared in the past few weeks. Edmund wasn’t an expert on the arctic, in fact he knew next to nothing about the place, but from what the other, more experienced men said, the water was freezing unusually fast. Though command didn’t seem all that worried, the talk among the crew that Edmund had managed to overhear was that of worry. After finding out about all the strange happenings of the last expedition, Edmund now understood why everyone was worried about this. He thought maybe it was just that a strange group of men had signed on to this expedition, but now he found himself acting just as skittish as some of his more paranoid crewmates. The thought of getting stuck out here, surrounded by near infinite ice, not to mention the idea of hostile creatures attacking them while they were exposed out here...

He gripped the rail of the ship and tried to calm himself. This state of anxiety was uncharacteristic of him and he berated himself for it. His eyes fell to the black water just beside the ship. A mix of placation and unease filled him as his thoughts lingered on the noise he’d heard. Either it was real, and there was something down there, or he was starting to lose his sanity. Neither option was very pleasant. His nerves began to get the better of him. He’d have sworn he saw something slip between the plates of ice, seen a glint of some creature’s scales beneath the black sea. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, deliberately, creating a long cloud of breath in the cold air. He watched it slip away and dissolve, and with it he forced away his childish fear of his imagined creatures. _Sea monsters, ghosts, magic, there’s no such thing. You’re acting foolish._ Even as he thought it he felt uneasy. He glanced back down at the water. There was nothing. For all intents and purposes, it was an empty abyss. It still wasn’t comforting but it was better than the alternative. Edmund turned and leaned back against the railing. He rubbed his face and sighed. The cold was getting to him. At least below deck the temperature was tolerable. He took one last look at the heavy ice floating on the ocean, then made his way back below deck, where at least the ship’s steam engine could drown out the noises of the abyss.


End file.
